Ripple (CRYPTO: XRP) has spent most of 2026 expanding in Australia, but the company has signaled it could move into an even bigger market. Ripple just published a full country-by-country breakdown of Africa’s crypto regulation, which could be a snippet of where it’s heading next.
Sub-Saharan Africa received over $205 billion in on-chain value in the past 12 months—a 52% jump that makes it the third fastest-growing crypto region in the world. Ripple is already operating across the continent through RLUSD partnerships and a custody deal with one of Africa’s largest banks. With both 2026 acquisitions so far being in Australia, could Africa be where Ripple looks next?
How Fast Is Africa’s Crypto Market Growing?
Sub-Saharan Africa is now the third fastest-growing crypto region in the world. Over $205 billion in on-chain value flowed through the region in the past 12 months, and most of it was everyday use. People are sending money home, paying bills, and moving savings into stablecoins to protect against currency devaluation. Over 8% of all crypto transfers in Africa are under $10,000, which is higher than the global average and shows how deeply crypto has become part of daily life across the continent.
Four African countries are now in the Global Crypto Adoption Top 20, up from two in 2025, with Nigeria accounting for $92 billion of the regional total on its own. The continent handles 70% of the world’s $1 trillion mobile money market, meaning hundreds of millions of people already move money digitally without a bank account. For them, stablecoins and cross-border crypto payments are not a big leap, but a faster, cheaper version of what they already do every day.
All of this growth is happening alongside a wave of new regulation that gives companies like Ripple a reason to take the market seriously. South Africa has required licensing for crypto service providers since June 2023, Nigeria passed the Investments and Securities Act in 2025 formally classifying digital assets, and Kenya signed its VASP Bill into law in October 2025.
Eight African countries now have crypto-specific regulations in place, with Ghana, Botswana, and Namibia actively building theirs, giving Ripple more regulated entry points in Africa now than it had in all of Asia-Pacific two years ago.
What Does Ripple Already Have on the Ground in Africa?
Ripple has five active partnerships across the continent, and they all do something different. Chipper Cash is a cross-border payments app with over 5 million users across seven African countries and the UK. VALR is South Africa’s largest crypto exchange, and Yellow Card runs stablecoin on-ramps and off-ramps in over 20 African countries. All three are now distributing RLUSD directly to retail and institutional users.
Absa Bank, one of Africa’s largest financial institutions with operations in 12 countries, is now using Ripple Custody for its institutional clients. Ripple is also running a pilot with Mercy Corps Ventures in Kenya that uses RLUSD to deliver drought relief aid faster and more transparently than traditional channels.
So far, Ripple has built a distribution network across Africa that covers remittances, institutional custody, exchange liquidity, and humanitarian aid—all without making a single acquisition on the continent.
Could Africa Be Where XRP Actually Gets Used?
Sending $200 to Sub-Saharan Africa through traditional banking systems costs around 8.9% in fees on average, and settlement can take days. Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity service uses XRP as a bridge currency to settle cross-border payments in seconds at a fraction of that cost.
ODL converts the sender’s currency into XRP, moves it across the XRP Ledger, and converts it into the recipient’s local currency on the other side. It has processed over $15 billion in cross-border payments globally, and Africa’s high remittance costs and limited banking infrastructure make it a natural fit for that technology.
Most of Ripple’s current Africa partnerships are running on RLUSD and fiat rails rather than XRP directly. Chipper Cash, VALR, and Yellow Card are distributing Ripple’s stablecoin, and the Absa custody deal stores digital assets without requiring XRP to be the settlement layer. Roughly 40% of RippleNet’s partners globally use ODL with XRP, while the rest settle in fiat only, and none of Ripple’s African partnerships use ODL yet.
The economics of African remittances could push more of those partnerships toward XRP. When cross-border fees are that high and settlement takes days, the savings from XRP-based ODL are too significant for institutions across the continent to pass by. Ripple already has the local partnerships and the custody infrastructure in place, but what it needs now is for more African corridors to go live on ODL—and the regulatory groundwork for that is already done in eight countries.
Will Ripple’s Africa Push Be Different for XRP?
Ripple’s Africa expansion is gaining traction, but right now, it is an RLUSD and custody play rather than an XRP one. What could change that is capital specifically earmarked for XRP liquidity in Africa—and it is already being raised. Trident Digital Tech Holdings is building a $500 million corporate XRP treasury to provide liquidity for African cross-border payments, with a phased rollout targeting mid-2026.
Once that liquidity is available, the next step is Ripple turning on ODL corridors with its African partners. The CLARITY Act classifying XRP as a digital commodity would give institutions the legal clarity to move off fiat-only rails. With remittance fees to Africa sitting at 8.9% on average, the reason to switch is already there—it just needs the infrastructure to catch up.
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